BHUBANESWAR: The state government has intensified efforts to provide safe drinking water to every household by the March 2027 target.
Presiding over a high-level meeting here recently, chief secretary Anu Garg instructed all collectors to ensure quality water supply, promote community participation and involve women self-help groups in the operation and maintenance of rural water schemes for long-term sustainability. The meeting stressed completion of projects for supply of drinking water in the rural areas of the state.
Officials sources said out of 207 mega piped water supply projects being executed across the state, 42 have been fully completed and are now supplying water. Another 44 projects have either started partial supply or are in the commissioning stage.
The meeting was further informed that 18,737 of the total 19,086 tube well drinking water projects have been completed so far. Similarly, out of the 8,863 solar-powered drinking water projects, 6,637 have been wrapped up.
Under the flagship ‘Har Ghar Jal’ scheme, tap water connections have so far reached 16,724 villages in the state. Official sources said, out of these, 12,484 villages have been certified as having functional household tap connections as per norms. The government has set an ambitious target to cover all remaining villages by the targeted date.
Official sources said sustainable water supply management, operation and maintenance, and water quality surveillance will be given importance under the Jaj Jeevan Mission. Strengthening technical support at district and block levels, institutional reforms, citizen engagement and digital governance through ‘Sujalam Bharat’ will also be taken up.
So far, over 94,000 ‘Sujal Gram’ IDs have been created and geo-tagging along with the Command and Control Centre module is expected to be completed by targeted date, the sources added.